Day 3: Back to the City

This morning we left Misahaulli for Quito, stopping at the Nate Saint house and the city of Baños. The Nate Saint house was home to Nate Saint (obviously), who was in the group of 5 missionary families trying to share the gospel with the indigenous and infamously aggressive Waorani (also called Udani and a few other names) tribe of Ecuador. If you’ve seen End of the Spear or read Through the Gates of Splendor, that’s what I’m talking about. After significant strides in communication and developing nonverbal relationships, all 5 fathers were speared to death after a misunderstanding with the Waorani men. But their efforts didn’t die with them. Their relatives returned to continue ministering to these Indians, and many became disciples of Christ.

Nate Saint was a pilot and one of the first to use this type of plane to reach the seemingly unreachable tribesmen.

Next we went to Baños, which could best be described as Gatlinburg dropped into the middle of Ecuador. We first got into a rickety cart and slid along a cable in between mountains over the Napo River (a tributary of the Amazon). After successfully getting all the way across and back, we celebrated with some avocado ice cream from a street vender. Afterward we toured several different garages before we found one willing to work on the holiday. You see, on Day 1 our window broke and wouldn’t roll up. This wouldn’t seem like such a big deal, except for inconsistent downpours and our luggage was waiting to be stolen from the back seat – not to mention we were smuggling a parrot out of a jungle village. Our options were a man with a severely broken back or a man with one arm. We opted for broken back.

The view from the cable car

It’s a looooooooooong way down

Spencer convinced my English teacher that the cable car was broken when it stopped in the middle for pictures. It was not exactly her favorite moment on the trip.

We bought this parrot from the jungle. As it turns out, smuggling exotic animals into the city is illegal. We had to hide Ramona amid clothing piles, in backpacks, and inside the glove compartment at police checkpoints.

The first time I touched a bird

Banos

After the window was “fixed” we went to lunch, then some shopping in the rain, then loaded back in the truck with the parrot and headed for Quito. Between hiding the bird from the police to seeing Cotopoxi (a huge mountain), the ride was an adventure in itself. When we got back we had some delicious soup, then Spencer took us out for ice cream (our 3rd dessert for the day). After we got back we chatted in the room for a while before falling asleep under our new alpaca blankets.